One of the biggest question marks on the 2012 tentpole schedule is Disney’s John Carter, formerly John Carter of Mars. Pixar’s Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo, Wall-E) directs the live-action film that adapts APrincess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Now that we’re able to see some footage, it appears that he has done so with a sense of grand, old-school fantasy/sci-fi epics. I had no idea what to expect out of this, and so far, I’m impressed.

Check out the trailer for the film, after the break.

Talking about this trailer over IM this morning, Germain joked about John Carter of Nazareth. And yeah, it’s pretty tough to miss a couple big Christ allusions in this trailer, especially with a former onscreen Jesus, Willem Dafoe, providing that prophetic voiceover at the end. Is that bad? Not at all. And it may be more sales pitch than anything else.

Beyond that, this looks like a sprawling (secular) adventure. Taylor Kitsch looks quite able as the title character, a Civil War vet who is somehow transported to Mars where he is embroiled in a conflict between societies, and his Wolverine cohort Lynn Collins may be able to hold her own as the Martian princess Deja Thoris. We don’t see much of the giant martians that will play a big part in the story, but we do hear one, thanks to that aforementioned Willem Dafoe voiceover. There isn’t a lot of story here, but there is that giant epic feel.

Read more about John Carter in Pete’s edit bay visit pieces here and here. The film opens on March 9, 2012.

From Academy Award(R)-winning filmmaker Andrew Stanton comes “John Carter”–a sweeping action-adventure set on the mysterious and exotic planet of Barsoom (Mars). “John Carter” is based on a classic novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, whose highly imaginative adventures served as inspiration for many filmmakers, both past and present. The film tells the story of war-weary, former military captain John Carter (Taylor Kitsch), who is inexplicably transported to Mars where he becomes reluctantly embroiled in a conflict of epic proportions amongst the inhabitants of the planet, including Tars Tarkas (Willem Dafoe) and the captivating Princess Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins). In a world on the brink of collapse, Carter rediscovers his humanity when he realizes that the survival of Barsoom and its people rests in his hands.